While many major cities in the United States are once again gaining population, growing their economies, and attracting talent, many small and mid-sized cities are in decline. The reasons for this growing disparity are multi-faceted. A growing body of research has been exploring planning challenges in declining cities and towns. This body of research—often called “shrinking cities” and “urban shrinkage” research—is premised on the belief that many declining places will continue to shed population, jobs, and industries, and planning smartly for this decline is the only sensible path forward. So far, research in the U.S. has focused primarily on Northeast and Midwest cities where population and industrial decline has been the most severe. Less scholarship has studied places that have declined more slowly and more recently. This thesis examines the current trends impacting the decline of mid-sized cities in the Midwestern United States, focusing on four cities in the State of Illinois. It also explores whether these cities are ready to consider the possibility that population decline is not temporary and change their planning strategies accordingly. Finally, this thesis will introduce an emerging paradigm in contemporary urban planning practice that fuses growth and decline strategies, to prepare mid-sized cities for an uncertain demographic and economic future.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This dissertation illuminates the links between agriculture, popular culture, social class, and agrarian nostalgia. Using an interdisciplinary approach, I draw from the fields of American Studies, American History, Agricultural History, Environmental Studies, popular culture, and cultural geography. Consisting of four diverse case studies, my project focuses on America's evolving relationship with its agrarian roots from the late eighteenth century to the present. Each case study pays close attention to the ways in which the forces of modern consumerism have shaped public understanding of agricultural issues. The dissertation pivots on two main arguments: 1) the modern realities of industrialized agriculture have sparked a desire for highly romanticized visions of farming, particularly tourism to rural places that promise temporary pastoral transcendence to consumers, and 2) as a result of the public demand for idyllic constructions of American rural life, agrarian nostalgia has frequently been deployed in the service of commerce. From the writings of Thomas Jefferson and Laura Ingalls Wilder, to Currier and Ives painting, Martha Stewart's media empire, and state fairs of the American Midwest, I analyze a variety of highly romanticized cultural forms that enrich our understanding of the nation's agrarian heritage. Yet, I also make important links between the past and present, and demonstrate how and why debates about such issues as farm policy and the politics of food once again stand at the forefront of popular consciousness in the twenty-first century. / text

This dissertation looks at how teachers, unionists, and cultural workers used black history to offer new ways of thinking about racial knowledge from a local level. Numerous efforts to promote and teach this history demonstrated how dissident cosmopolitan political currents from previous decades remained relevant to a vibrant and ideologically diffuse African American public sphere despite widespread Cold War dispersions, white supremacist reactions, and anticommunist repressions. My argument proceeds by demonstrating how these public history projects coalesced around a series of connected pedagogical endeavors. These endeavors included the work of school teachers on Chicago's South side who tried to advance curriculum reforms through World War II and afterwards, the work of packinghouse workers and other union-focused educators who used anti-discrimination campaigns to teach about the history of African Americans and Mexican Americans in the labor movement and to advance innovative models for worker education, and the activities of important cultural workers like Margaret and Charles Burroughs who politicized urban space and fought for greater recognition of black history in the public sphere through the advancement of their vision for a museum. Collectively, these projects expressed important ideas about race, citizenship, education and intellectual labors that engaged closely with the rapidly shifting terrains of mid-20th Century civil rights and international anti-colonialisms. Ultimately, this dissertation offers a social history about how cosmopolitan cultural work in public history and similar forms of knowledge production were at the intersections of political realities and lived experience in U.S. urban life.

This doctoral research is linked to the line of Knowledge Research and Educational Practices, the Master\'s and Doctorate Programs in Education at the University of Uberlândia - UFU. Considering the needs presented in the Brazilian educational context, with regard to learning disabilities and scientific production of didactic, as the area responsible for the theoretical basis of educational practices at school, this research was first purpose, seizure of that scientific production. Was elected as an object of study that produced didactic knowledge, embodied in Articles prepared by teachers of the lines of research, the Graduate Program in Education located in the Midwest Region, from 2004 to 2010. This research is justified considering the contributions that a body of knowledge, inferred of the subject matter, can bring to think the educational practice, the constitution of teaching with regard to their investigative field, signal trends, objects being neglected and theoretical foundations that support these productions, which are important to the overall understanding of didactic knowledge produced in the academy and how it can support interventions in school practices. It aimed to unveil the conceptions and the knowledge produced on Teaching in Brazilian graduate, to what extent these views allow or not the teaching-learning relationship that promotes development. The specific guiding objectives were outlined to map scientific production of teaching, understand the constitution of this in teaching and research, analyze and discuss the theoretical and methodological aspects that sustain the knowledge produced, as well as highlight the contributions of the teaching thinking is guided Theory of Developmental Education. To this end, there was a state of the art using as theoretical foundation, the historical materialist method dialectical and theoretical and operational principles of developmental teaching. It was found as the most significant trends that scientific didactics production has prioritized as an object of study, training and professionalization of teachers for performance in higher education, focusing more on the teaching-learning area, the size of the grounds, to the detriment modes and conditions in which teaching is performed. The results indicate the need for education organization intends to provide the student\'s development in the context of the classroom taking into account the formation of theoretical thinking and social and cultural practices, which are embedded in the school routine. Evaluation as a teaching resource that contributes to the quality of teacher education, taking into account that, beyond the realm of academic content, you need to consider creativity, affection, subjectivity, emotional and motivations. How overlooked aspects were identified little expression studies with an interest in early childhood education, primary and secondary education, with total absence of studies on adult education, as well as the relationships that are established in the school\'s organizational structure, materials textbooks used in the special needs presented by students. With regard to the privileged location are few studies that direct their attention to the classroom, to the organization\'s context of school or various locations. / Esta pesquisa de doutoramento vincula-se à linha de pesquisa Saberes e Práticas Educativas, dos Programas de Mestrado e Doutorado em Educação da Universidade de Uberlândia UFU. Considerando as necessidades apresentadas no contexto educacional brasileiro, no que se refere às deficiências de aprendizagens e à produção científica da didática, como área responsável pelo substrato teórico das práticas educativas na escola, essa pesquisa teve como propósito primeiro, a apreensão dessa produção científica. Elegeu-se como objeto de estudo o conhecimento didático produzido, materializado nos artigos elaborados pelos professores das linhas de pesquisas, dos Programas de Pós-graduação em Educação localizados na Região Centro-Oeste, no período de 2004 a 2010. Essa pesquisa se justifica considerando as contribuições que um conjunto de conhecimentos, depreendido do objeto de estudo, pode trazer para pensar a prática educativa, a constituição da didática no que se refere ao seu campo investigativo, sinalizar tendências, objetos que estão sendo negligenciados e fundamentações teóricas que embasam essas produções, as quais são importantes para a compreensão geral do conhecimento didático produzido na academia e como este pode subsidiar as intervenções nas práticas escolares. Objetivou-se desvelar as concepções e os conhecimentos produzidos sobre Didática na pós-graduação brasileira, em que medida essas concepções possibilitam ou não a relação ensino-aprendizagem que promove o desenvolvimento. Os objetivos norteadores específicos foram delineados para mapear a produção científica da didática, compreender a constituição dessa no âmbito do ensino e da pesquisa, analisar e discutir os aspectos teórico-metodológicos que sustentam o conhecimento produzido, assim como, evidenciar as contribuições do pensamento didático pautado na Teoria do Ensino Desenvolvimental. Para tanto, realizou-se um estado da arte utilizando, como fundamento teórico, o método materialista histórico dialético e os princípios teóricos e operacionais da didática desenvolvimental. Constatou-se como tendências mais expressivas que a produção científica da didática tem priorizado, como objeto de estudos, a formação e a profissionalização de professores para atuação no ensino superior, enfocando mais a área de ensino-aprendizagem, na dimensão dos fundamentos, em detrimento dos modos e condições nos quais o ensino é realizado. Os resultados indicam a necessidade da organização do ensino tencionando proporcionar o desenvolvimento do aluno no contexto da sala de aula levando em consideração a formação do pensamento teórico e as práticas sociais e culturais, as quais estão imbricadas no cotidiano da escola. A avaliação como recurso didático que contribui para a qualidade da formação do professor, levando em conta que, além do domínio do conteúdo escolar, é preciso considerar a criatividade, a afetividade, a subjetividade, o emocional e as motivações. Como aspectos negligenciados foram identificados pouca expressividade de estudos que têm interesses na educação infantil, ensino fundamental e médio, com ausência total de estudos sobre a educação de jovens e adultos, assim como, nas relações que se estabelecem na estrutura organizacional da escola, nos materiais didáticos utilizados, nas necessidades especiais apresentadas pelos alunos. No que se refere ao local privilegiado são poucas pesquisas que direcionam suas atenções para a sala de aula, para o contexto da organização da escola ou locais diversos. / Doutor em Educação

No description available.

Risk, and how one proceeds with uncertainty, are key indicators of behavior. In particular, in observing farmers, risk perception is found to influence the decision to innovate and adopt new crops (Ghadim et al., 2005). Farmers who are more risk-averse tend to be later adopters of new crops, while risk-loving farmers tend to be first adopters (Barham et al., 2014). As such, the recent legal shifts in hemp production laws have prompted many growers eager to test out the crop to do so. A vast majority of current licensees planted less than 50 acres to start, despite being mostly corn and soy producers—implying large acreage access. The American ‘hemp rush’ provides us with a real-time display of adoption behavior and its gendered implications.

No description available.